The Real Happy Pill Read online

  We should ask ourselves why no one seems to know about this research. The reason could be spelled out with the letters m-o-n-e-y, as in the case of physical activity’s effect on depression, which we explored in the chapter The real happy pill. If a drug, or even a dietary supplement, had shown this potency, it would have been marketed relentlessly, and we all would have heard about it. It’s strange, as well as a pity, that not everyone knows that the brains of children—and of adults, for that matter—are influenced in this way by exercise. Unlike pharmaceuticals, dietary supplements, computer games, and cognitive training methods, physical activities such as playing, walking, and running are free of charge. And the body gets a “twofer” by way of a long line of positive effects that no dietary supplement in the world can match.

  THE RIGHT PRESCRIPTION FOR CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS

  Elevating the heart rate seems to be especially beneficial for the brain; try to get up to around 150 beats per minute.

  It’s the intensity that counts. Physical activity doesn’t have to be about working out; play is just as beneficial. As with adults, it isn’t what children do, it’s that they do something.

  It’s best that children be active for at least thirty minutes for optimal benefits.

  Shorter bouts of activity do count. When children and teenagers move around for twelve minutes, their reading comprehension and ability to focus improve. As brief as four minutes of activity at an intensity equal to jogging makes concentration easier. So, it’s important to get out and play during recess, even if it’s only for a few minutes!

  Sporadic activity lasting ten to forty minutes at a time leads to temporary improvement in working memory, reading comprehension, and attention span.

  Being physically active a few times a week for two to three months leads to permanent effects such as better arithmetic ability, increased creativity, and improved executive control (planning, initiative, concentration, and impulse control).

  8. HEALTHY AGING OF THE BRAIN

  I am physically active, walking, jogging, and running for at least four hours a day. It keeps my body and mind active.

  FAUJA SINGH, 105 (who ran a marathon at the age of 100)

  I’m sure we’ve all seen plenty of examples of how aging has big consequences on our brain’s ability to function. It’s not simply about our memory; at more advanced ages, we also think more slowly, and our cognitive functions such as concentration and multitasking decline. By studying how the brain works, we’ve begun to understand why there are differences in mental abilities between the young and the elderly.

  The Stroop test consists of a word that spells out the name of a certain color—with the individual letters presented in a different color, for example, the word “blue” spelled out in red letters. You must quickly identify the color of the letters that make up the word—in this case, red—not the color indicated by the word’s meaning, namely, blue. Concentration and decision making are required to suppress the impulse to choose the color specified by the word. When the brains of subjects involved in this test are examined, it shows that the anterior part of the frontal lobe, the prefrontal cortex, is activated. That is to be expected, since that part of the brain is key in decision making, focus, and impulse control.

  Generally, older adults perform worse than young people on the Stroop test; they often have trouble resisting the urge to select the word color instead of the color the word is written out in, making this an effective test to call attention to the differences between the brains of the young and old.

  In young brains, only some parts of the prefrontal cortex are activated, and often only on the left side. When a seventy-year-old performs the test, larger parts of the prefrontal cortex are activated, and in both sides of the brain. This probably means that the test requires more mental effort for an older person and that a larger area of the brain must be pressed into service. It’s no different, really, from a young, strapping person being able to lift a chair with one arm while an older person, who might not be quite as strong, would need to use both arms.

  Scientists have named this “two-brain-halves-in-use” phenomenon HAROLD (Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in Older Adults). It’s interesting that one segment of seventy-year-olds that does not exhibit this tendency is made up of individuals who are physically fit. When they perform the test, only one half of their brain lights up and even smaller areas of the prefrontal cortex are involved—their brains function as if they were younger brains. Like a muscular seventy-year-old who can lift a chair with one arm, an older fit person only needs to use one side of the brain when doing the Stroop test. The test showed that they not only used less of their brain for the task; they also performed above and beyond the level of people of the same age.

  THE BRAIN’S AGING PROCESS CAN BE STOPPED

  The HAROLD experiment on seventy-year-olds is only one of many tests that illustrates that exercise seems to have a remarkable ability to halt the brain’s aging process. As you’ve seen earlier in the book, the hippocampus doesn’t shrink but grows in someone who is physically active. The same applies to the frontal lobe—the brain’s boss. Like the hippocampus, the frontal lobe shrinks over one’s life span, which adds to the impairment of our mental capacities. However, physical activity can stop the shrinking of even the frontal lobe.

  In fact, the amount by which the frontal lobe contracts has been linked to how much energy (i.e., how many calories) we expend. In people who use up a lot of energy and move around, the frontal lobe seems to dwindle more slowly as they age. The thinking part of their brain—after all, the frontal lobe is where our most advanced cognitive functions are housed—is shielded from aging! By contrast, people who don’t burn a lot of calories, in other words those who are very sedentary, have frontal lobes that shrink much faster. A few quick moves on the running trail is not going to make much of a difference, either; we’re talking about accumulated calorie expenditure over several years here—decades, even. We can’t achieve this merely by jogging sporadically around the neighborhood.

  Having a wide pool of test subjects is always a good thing in medical research because it reduces the risk of getting false results. When scientists kept track of about twenty thousand women between the ages of seventy and eighty over the span of two decades, it became evident that those who exercised regularly retained their memory much longer than those who were sedentary. In addition, focus and attention were sharper in those who were active. The difference was so stark that the brains of the subjects who trained functioned as if they were three years younger. Mentally, they appeared to be, on average, three years younger than their biological age. As is so often the case when it comes to exercise’s effects on the brain, we need not make Herculean efforts; a twenty-minute daily walk is enough.

  THE PILOTS WHO LOST THEIR EDGE

  For some individuals, having cognitive abilities that are intact isn’t only essential for normal functioning; it’s critical for their work. Gradually losing our ability to focus, multitask, and exhibit sound judgment as we age could mean that we are no longer able do our job. And there are few professions for which proper cognitive function is as critical as for an airplane pilot.

  A team of scientists from Stanford University decided to follow 144 pilots who had to test their flying skills in a simulator on a yearly basis. Their reactions to a series of potentially dangerous situations were observed—scenarios involved an engine failure, malfunction of the landing gear, or the presence of another plane in the wrong airspace that could send the two aircrafts on a collision course.

  Points were used to grade the pilots’ ability to handle these and other types of challenging situations. When they performed the test several years in a row, the results showed that flying skills gradually became impaired over time. That’s no big surprise because the brain ages. However, one group of pilots’ abilities declined twice as fast as the skills of the other pilots. When the scientists examined that group’s genes, they discovered more incidences of a mutation of
the gene for BDNF, the brain’s own fertilizer. In that same group, they also noticed that the hippocampus (the memory center) had shrunk more rapidly compared to the hippocampi of the pilots who did not have that genetic mutation.

  The mutation was present in one-third of the pilots, and it is estimated that about as many people in the population at large carry this gene, making the odds—ours included—of having this genetic alteration about three to one. One in three people have a gene that probably makes their brains age quicker, their hippocampi shrink faster, and their mental abilities decline more rapidly.

  Is there any way to prevent this? Since you’re born with a set of genes that you cannot change, if you happen to carry this gene in its mutated form, well, then it’s there. However, you can strongly affect how much BDNF your brain makes—through physical activity, especially intense exercise like interval training, which provides optimal results. The scientist who conducted the study made the following statement in an interview: “There is a clear and proven way to ensure increased BDNF levels in the brain, and that is with physical activity.”

  We can also assert that exercise leads to improved circumstances that keep our intellectual capacities running longer in life. We can stop mental and cerebral aging. For the third of us whose genetic makeup has predestined our brain to age a little bit faster, it’s imperative to get started on exercise.

  Can physical activity improve pilots’ flying skills? Personally, I would prefer that proper scientific evidence back things up before drawing any definitive conclusions, so at this point my answer is: let’s wait and see. But there really is no reason to believe that it can’t.

  YOU ARE YOUR MEMORY

  Of all the cognitive abilities that diminish as we age, memory stands out the most. Having a good memory is so much more than remembering where you put your keys or what was on yesterday’s news. Your memory puts everything you do into perspective. Essentially, you are who you are because of your memories. Every decision you make, from the trivial—the color of your socks—to your choice of career and of where you’re going to live, is tied to past experiences.

  Our memory does a comparison check against past events in every situation we find ourselves in. Memory anchors us to our lives, and if our ability to remember disappears, we change as individuals. Anyone who has witnessed a person suffering from dementia will know what I’m talking about. As the ability to remember fades away, the person becomes a shadow of his or her former self. Thus, sharpening our memory entails something more fundamental than simply increasing the number of words we can recall on a memory test.

  When we examine how physical activity affects memory, it’s difficult to ignore the odds that we’ll be diagnosed with dementia. There are more than five million Americans living with Alzheimer’s Disease, a form of dementia; throughout the world, a new case is diagnosed every seven seconds. If this trend continues, there will be 150 million individuals with dementia by 2050. These figures are as grim as the illness itself.

  Due to the sheer number of people affected by this disease, pharmaceutical companies have been throwing money at dementia research; every year several billion dollars are earmarked for the development of dementia drugs. Unfortunately, a cure has been elusive, and the result of these expended billions can only be described as weak at best. As of now, there are still no effective medications for dementia.

  Walking is the best medicine for dementia!

  Walk against dementia

  Scientists with far smaller budgets than pharmaceutical companies have investigated whether there’s anything that can decrease the risk for dementia, and it just so happens that these scientists have made some incredible discoveries. A few years ago, it was shown that a daily walk could cut our risk of developing dementia by 40 percent. The media didn’t pay too much attention to this news, and that’s a real shame because it’s a mind-boggling statistic.

  A drug showing the same promise would become the world’s best-selling pharmaceutical in no time and hailed as the most groundbreaking invention since antibiotics. The Nobel Prize would be in those scientists’ pocket. We would all know the drug by name and would probably fight tooth and nail to have it prescribed to ourselves and our loved ones to lessen our likelihood of getting dementia. As it was, the news was not about a drug but about something as simple as going for a walk for thirty minutes, which we don’t even have to do every day—five days a week is plenty.

  It wasn’t only the media that missed this important discovery; a lot of physicians did, too. Many scientists and doctors are focused on other research, such as finding the genes responsible for Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia. The study of our genes is, inarguably, thrilling, and of course there is a genetic factor to Alzheimer’s, especially if you have close relatives who suffer from it. But for most of us, our genetic inheritance is less important than whether we are physically active or not. Research shows unambiguously that it is the sedentary person who needs to worry about dementia—not those who have a parent or grandparent who has the illness.

  Sadly, many people for whom dementia runs in the family believe that it doesn’t matter if they exercise, since they’re doomed to develop the disease anyway. This is very unfortunate because it is especially important for them to start moving! Most of them can overcome their genetic fate, and more, with regular training.

  It’s truly mysterious why it has been so difficult to get this message across. It might be that genetic and pharmaceutical research is considered so very high-tech that it fires up our collective imagination, and thus makes it more media-friendly. The amazing benefit of a regular walk is pretty tame in comparison. Our initial reaction is that all that pharmaceutical money should be expected to conjure up a more cutting-edge and innovative cure than a simple walk. Well, that’s not so. As it happens, walking is the best medicine for dementia.

  A better world for the brain

  How can a walk provide the best protection against dementia? It should be the brain, not the legs, that should be exercised—with crosswords, Sudoku, and different types of brain-teaser games. However, research clearly shows that a walk is far more important than the daily crossword, not just in protecting against dementia, but in safeguarding all cognitive abilities. Our brain does not shut off when we take a walk—far from it. Many different mental processes are engaged when we walk or run. Multiple visual impressions need to be synchronized and balanced out, while large areas of the motor cortex are busy coordinating our body’s movements. Furthermore, we need to be aware of where we are and where we’re going, which in and of itself presses yet more areas of the brain into service. Movement for a complicated activity, such as playing tennis, causes even more of the brain’s systems to be on call. When we compare this to working on a crossword, which involves mostly the language center, we realize that the mental labor is greater when we move around than when we sit with the paper.

  Besides, our brain isn’t vacuum-sealed in our cranium; it is covered in a solution filled with nutrients and growth factors that is extremely fine-tuned and hugely influential on how our brain operates. To provide the brain with the best possible conditions in this bath, our blood pressure must remain stable. Likewise, blood glucose and blood fats should be in balance. The number of free radicals shouldn’t be too high, and the level of inflammation in the body—there is always some level of inflammation in the body—shouldn’t be excessive, either. Today, we know that all these factors are positively impacted when we are physically active, which means that the brain’s environment is ideal in anyone who exercises.

  The body and the brain are not two separate entities; many of the positive effects that movement has on the body—such as stable blood sugar and low levels of free radicals—strengthens the brain, as well. A strong heart will pump enough blood to provide the brain with the energy it needs. The expression “a sound mind in a sound body” isn’t just a dusty cliché; it’s true.

  So how active do we need to be to lower our risk of deve
loping dementia? Research has mostly defined the workload to be equal to walking or light jogging for a total of 150 minutes per week, or half an hour five times a week. Running for twenty minutes, three times a week, yields comparable results. We’re not sure yet what effect weight training has on dementia, so until we know, it’s better to keep doing what has proven to work: walk or run, instead of going to the gym.

  It isn’t only in cases of dementia that movement protects your memory. Advancing years impair memory for most of us, without having anything to do with dementia. The hippocampus shrinks, blood flow to the brain diminishes, and there’s weaker contact between the different areas in the brain. But we can slow these processes down markedly if we stay active. Training slams the brakes on the brain’s aging and improves our memory, whether we suffer from dementia or not.

  A picture of healthy aging

  The Canadian star athlete Olga Kotelko died in June 2014, at ninety-five years of age, after an incredibly successful career that included 37 world records and 750 wins. Does her name sound unfamiliar? It’s no wonder: Kotelko didn’t begin training at elite levels until she was seventy-seven years old. The long jump and hundred-meter sprint were two of her favorite events, and she was proclaimed the oldest long jumper in the world after her ninetieth birthday. Her field of competition narrowed in the last years of her career; in fact, she often didn’t have any competitors at all. It was enough for her to turn up at the meet to be given a gold medal.

  People who start training and competing in sports when they’re over seventy-five years old are few and far between indeed. This is especially true for those who have never competed at elite levels before. That’s why a group of scientists asked Olga if she would allow them to examine her brain by MRI. What they were looking to find out was if, and how, the brain was influenced by exercise at such an advanced age. Olga agreed to undergo the MRI, and her brain was compared to a group of her peers who had lived like most other ninety-year-olds—by resting a lot and harboring no thoughts of entering athletic competitions. The MRI showed that Olga’s brain was healthier, featuring a larger hippocampus and nice-looking white matter. And it wasn’t just the scans that looked good—Olga’s memory was far better than those of her peers.